More than two million cases of the new coronavirus have been officially registered around the world, half of them in Europe, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 1000 GMT Wednesday based on official sources.

The IMF on Tuesday slashed India's projected GDP growth to 1.9 per cent in 2020 from 5.8 per cent in January, as the global economy hits the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s due to the raging coronavirus pandemic that has nearly stalled all economic activities across the world.

Around 117 million children worldwide risk contracting measles because dozens of countries are curtailing their vaccination programmes as they battle COVID-19, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.

The novel coronavirus has killed more than 120,000 people worldwide, nearly 70 percent of them in Europe, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT Tuesday from official sources.

The Trump administration on Monday notified the Congress of its determination to sell Harpoon air-launched missiles and lightweight torpedoes worth USD 155 million to India.

Italy's death toll from the novel coronavirus topped 20,000 on Monday but its number of critically ill patients dropped for the tenth successive day as its rate of infections slowed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's stay home message he tweeted Sunday has drawn angry reactions on social networks from those calling him insensitive to people who cannot rest at home because of the government's social distancing measures that do not come with compensation.

 Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday vowed that Britain "will defeat" the deadly coronavirus, soon after he was discharged from hospital following week-long intensive care treatment for the disease that has killed over 10,000 people in the country.